The New England Society for Tea Fetishism

The Red Sox won the World Series. Let me say that one more time so it can sink in. The Red Sox won the World Series. Now, as a New Englander born and raised, there's something intrinsically wrong with that statement. I know that it's a fact, saw it happen actually while I was sitting at my computer and sipping apple-cinnamon tea out of one of my brand new tea cups between periodic runs outside to check on the progress of the lunar eclipse. The conjunction of the eclipse and the Sox victory (and the fact that I was watching all manner of grotesque horror movie clips on Bravo last night) leads me to believe that this is the sixth sign of the apocalypse. What's the seventh sign? Well, we'll know it if it comes on November 2nd.

But what if it's not a sign of the apocalypse at all and instead there was some kind of rip in space and time that occurred when they won the fourth game of the playoffs? Like that theory in quantum physics about all possible outcomes of an event actually happening in alternate universes? What if we fell into an alternate universe? With any luck it won't go all Donnie Darko and collapse in on itself, but who knows?

Not to say that I'm not supremely thrilled and tickled and all those wonderful feelings, because I am. The Sox winning the Series after an 86-year shut out is a dream come true for a lot of people (mostly the Red Sox, I think), but that's what it's like. I keep expecting someone to smack me in the face and say, Wake up asshole, the Yankees beat the Cardinals 30 to 1 last night. It's just really, really, really unreal. In a good way.

Last night I ate a quarter of my pomegranate. It was beautiful. The seeds are like rubies, or funky little fish eggs. It's a great snack food (although not very practical outside of the home since the juice got all over me) because it takes so damn long to eat. I sat in front of the television after class last night and it took me an hour to finish picking out all those juicy little seeds in the quarter that I cut out. And, as well as amusing and time consuming, it was also delicious--except for every so often when I accidentally ate a bit of the flesh. It tastes like skunk.

So I was sitting in my room and around 9:50 I got a call from Jeff. He asked what I was doing and I told him that I was eating a pomegranate and watching "Family Guy." He found that very amusing. He asked me if I wanted to go to CB's with him and Seth. I had homework to do, so of course I said yes. CB's is better than the Tidewater because they have Stoli (although their rack vodka tastes like tar), a pool table, a really nice bathroom, and an awesome juke box. Also, Jeff works at the Tidewater, and he hates his boss, so he avoids that place like the plague now. I spent no money, since Seth seemed very enthusiastic about buying drinks for us. I felt kind of bad at the end of the night, though, when he got the tab. He said "I bet you it isn't over thirty." It was fifty. So, next time I'm out with Seth, I'll buy him a drink or two.

We played pool, some game called Pirates that you can play with three people, and I won the first game. Seth won the next two. Then we played darts. Seth won two games, then I won two games. Jeff won nothing, although we stopped half-way through the last game and he was ahead by about 80 points, so we told him he won that one. In the parking lot Seth started spinning me around again, like I was supposed to pin a tail on a donkey. I don't know what his deal is with making go around in circles. I got back to my dorm at two, did my homework, and went to bed at three. I'm surprisingly awake today considering that I got up at 8 to go to work. I've already decided that if I go to the Tidewater after the reading on Wednesday, it's straight-up Coke for me. I gotta let my liver rest.

Well, my dears, let me tell you about the shopping spree I went on yesterday. Actually, it's not really a spree, but it was a great day of impulse buying. I went to the grocery store with Tracy, intending to grab a box of tissues with aloe (They have anit-viral tissues now. Is that a little too much for anyone else?) and possibly a bag of pre-washed sugar snap peas if they had them. I walked out of there with the tissues, two mangoes, a pomegranate, a bag of pecans, a bag of baby spinach, an Odwalla Super-Food, a little bottle of Bolthouse Farms carrot juice and a big bottle of Bolthouse Farms Perfectly Protein, which is vanilla chai made with soy milk and green tea. So now, for the first time this semester, I have food in my room that isn't oatmeal or peanut butter. And the chai is already half gone.

Then, at about 7:30 pm, we went to Pier One. Jeff works there and they had a "friends and family night" from 7-9, complete with a table of little pastries, brownie bites, and cucumber sandwiches. We got 30% off everything in the store. I went in with intention of buying a rug, which I did, and also came out with a candle and a little white Japanese-style tea set. I have tiny white tea cups now. I could barely contain the joy last night.

I went to Starbucks with Jeff on Saturday night (he called me right after he got off work and said that he was too antsy to go home right away), then we went back to his house for a while and watched the game with Peter (Go Sox!). Jeff's a fun boy to hang out with.

Why do I heart the Red Sox? Well, they did win the league championship last night, coming back from three straight losses to win four games in a row, finally crushing the Yankees with an embarrassing seven point lead. Also, they got me three free drinks at the Tidewater, since most everyone in there was a Sox fan (or at least mumbling "well, I guess they deserve it after all this time") and everyone started buying everyone else drinks. Actually, by everyone, I mean the six or seven of us who hadn't gone home yet. Peter, the Yankees fan, was inconsolable, but I gave him a hug so he wouldn't feel too bad. And all Seth could do was smile from ear to ear, yell, "Whoooo!" and "Johnny Damon, grand slam!" and tell Peter that "They changed the history of baseball!" Then, as Shawn and I were leaving, Seth picked me up, spun me around a few times, put me down, and said, "Sorry." Sox fans in New York. Who knew?
So now all Boston has to do is beat either Houston or St. Louis and then I won't ever have to hear about that curse of the Bambino shit ever again.

Jeff wasn't there. According to Seth, he's pretty sick, which I warned him about because he sounded congested when I talked to him on the phone the other day. Alice is sick too, so this morning it's just me and the work studies.

The reading last night was good, too. (If I'm at the Tidewater on a Wednesday night, it's because I met up with everyone at the reading beforehand). Lou Ann Walker, one of our English professors, read from her memoirs, which I might have to buy. She is a hearing daughter of two deaf parents. At the beginning she mentioned Galludet (sp?) and all I could think of was how mean their soccer team was to our team. During the question and answer part she told us about how she worked for a magazine in New York City and decided to do a story on a deaf street gang in the South Bronx called the Nasty Homicides. She kept calling them cute and sweet, and eventually (how this happened, I don't know) she ended up on Regis and Kathy Lee with them.
I might have to look that one up.

Is it very evil of me to laugh when a male model says that his biggest role model is Jesus? I have been watching "Manhunt: the search for the pretty boy with the most vacant expression" on Bravo. I'm rather ashamed of myself, but as I said above, "ohhh, pretty boys." [/drools on self] I'd like to say that it's a great sociological experiment, having all these men on tv being scrutinized and judged based on their looks instead of women (for once), but it's still mostly about looking at half-naked virile young men for an hour.
Last night four (or was it five?) guys were eliminated based on the results of a photo shoot with a real female model. I guess I'd be a terrible fashion photographer since two of the photographs I liked the best were hated the most by the judges. And the one I hated the most, the one in which the male model had the most vacant, lifeless expression, that guy is actually a professional model who was put onto the show as a mole to give the judges an insider report on the other contestants. I suppose there's no accounting for taste.

Once again, we have been without toilet paper for several days. The stolen role that I put out is almost gone. Yesterday afternoon I called res. life and our RA, Carmen. The woman at res. life said she'd do what she could to get housekeeping over to give us toilet paper, which was probably nothing since they never came, but Carmen was great and brought us four new rolls. When I get back to the dorm tonight we'll see if those rolls were put into their dispensers.
I use one stall exclusively, the one closest to the window. The other one has a loose, very dirty seat, like someone rubbed dirt all over it. The seat is black, but the dirt or dust or whatever it is, is brown. And what's worse is that Tracy pointed out something else on the seat. Someone left a little piece of feces on it. How? Why? Who? These are questions that will probably never be answered. But I couldn't stand leaving it there, so I did a little cleaning with a lot of paper towels and a spot of bleach. Yuckies.

I found this clip yesterday of Jon's appearance on "Crossfire." He went on the show (he's said many times on the air how useless he thinks Crossfire is) and tried to explain to the hosts what he thought they were doing wrong, as far as their duty to the public is concerned. If you want to watch a clip or read the transcript, check out phillybri.blogspot.com. It's the second entry from the top. I have nothing to blog about, so I thought I'd post one of my favorite exchanges involving Jon and the republican guy on the show, Tucker Carlson.

STEWART: It's not honest. What you do is not honest. What you do is partisan hackery. And I will tell you why I know it.
CARLSON: You had John Kerry on your show and you sniff his throne and you're accusing us of partisan hackery?
STEWART: Absolutely.
CARLSON: You've got to be kidding me. He comes on and you...
[CROSSTALK]
STEWART: You're on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls.
[LAUGHTER]
STEWART: What is wrong with you?
[APPLAUSE] CARLSON: Well, I'm just saying, there's no reason for you -- when you have this marvelous opportunity not to be the guy's butt boy, to go ahead and be his butt boy. Come on. It's embarrassing.
STEWART: I was absolutely his butt boy. I was so far -- you would not believe what he ate two weeks ago.
[LAUGHTER]
[CROSSTALK]
STEWART: You know, the interesting thing I have is, you have a responsibility to the public discourse, and you fail miserably.
CARLSON: You need to get a job at a journalism school, I think.
STEWART: You need to go to one.

Jeff called me on Friday night, very disappointed that no one in his house would go to the movies with him. I had nothing to do, so I said yes, and we went to see "Friday Night Lights," which was much better than I expected. I gasped a few times, once because they showed a dislocated finger (ewwww) and once because I recognized Christian Kane. He was only in the movie for about thirty seconds and he had really long hair and was very scruffy, but I recognized his voice immediately. Cut to me making a little fangirl squeal then having to explain to Jeff, "Oh, that guy was on Angel." And Caleb from that show "American Gothic" was one of the main characters. I think his name is actually Derek. The last time I saw him in anything I don't think he'd hit puberty yet, and there he was on screen with his big, masculine jawline and his deep voice. He's a cutie.

Jeff was a football player in high school and college, so on the ride home I got to hear some nice stories about disclocated fingers and popping them back in the socket and other nastiness.

I thought we were on a wild goose chase. The New Moon Cafe is on Montauk Highway, which means that Shawn and I should have been able to take a right out of the college and then gone straight until we hit it (I was told it was on the left, but it ended up being on the right). I remembered that the last time I went (which was the only time) it felt like it took forever to get there, and last night was no different. We crossed into East Quogue, where I was positive it was located, and passed through a little section of road that had a couple businesses, a bar, etc., but no New Moon Cafe. But there was an antique store that I was sure I walked by the last time I was there, so we drove through, found a driveway, turned around, and drove through town again. No luck. So we turned around again and drove through really slowly. It wasn't there. We drove until we got to Westhampton (I knew it wasn't that far down the road but I had to try), then turned around and decided to head back to the college. At this point I was apologizing profusely to Shawn, even though it wasn't my fault, but since I was the person who had been there before I felt responsible for not being able to find it.

When we hit that little strip of town again I had Shawn pull over so I could walk in somewhere and ask for directions. I ended up running into a little Chinese take-out place that looked like it was about to close (it was around 10:45 at this point) and asking the guy behind the counter, who could only shake his head no and respond "Cafe?" A slightly creepy-looking guy who was on his way out said "The New Moon Cafe? It's right across the street and it's closed." Cut to me saying "Your're kidding. Shit!" We parked directly across the street from it, and yes it was completely closed and completely dark, with no light to illuminate its wooden sign. One of the only times my memory actually works and the damn place is closed.

We drove back to campus (and took a quick stop at the Tidewater, but there were three cars there, one belonging to the owner, one to the bar tender, and one to . . . some guy), and when I got to my room at 11:00 there was a phone message from Jeff at 10:26 saying "I guess you know by now that there's no reading, but we're all at C.B's if you want to come down." I went to bed. What a weird night.

Wow.
Going through statcounter I found a girl who thought I was in a band (and possibly male) and she left me her e-mail address and her phone number. She was on my blog on Sept. 25, but the page she was on was from January of this year. So I e-mailed her, just to let her know that the whoever she thinks I am isn't an asshole for not giving her a reply.
But that was really weird.

Poetry reading at the New Moon Cafe tonight. I have about two pages of a short story I might read. I'll tell you about it tomorrow when I'm at work. Alice is going on a hiking trip in Connecticut so I'm in charge tomorrow and Monday. I'm also stuck at the desk in the big office without access to music, so it will be a long and most likely boring day.

I have been a very bad blogger lately--almost a whole week without a new post! But it's that time of year again when undergrads begin failing their classes and it's up to me to send them warning e-mails. So that takes up pretty much all of my day at work, and it's not like I can sit around and slack because all the e-mails get cc'd to my bosses, so they'll know if I'm not working. And when there is no work-work, there is school work, and when there is no schoolwork, there is Demagogue, because politics is taking over my life.

So it's pretty much been same shit, different day for the past week. People in my advanced fiction class keep turning in these awful poems and it's all Tracy and I can do not to groan out loud in class, so we gossip mercilessly when we get back to the suite. I feel kind of bad, but without Craig around to offer his "wit and wisdom," there really isn't anyone left to talk about.

Tonight is the first MFA reading of the year. I am not reading. Afterwards there will be a pilgrimage to the Tidewater, and tomorrow there's a poetry reading at the New Moon Cafe, where I may or may not read, but may be forced to do a shot of tequilla, as I made a promise that I am now reluctant to keep.
Note to self: never promise boys anything. But they were drunk at the time, so maybe they won't remember.

That's all, except for the whole blah, blah, blah, electioncakes stuff that you all are most likely well aware of and don't need me to expound upon, although I do recommend reading Demagogue every few days just because they have a habit of picking up stories and facts that the major news outlets don't run.

Happy birthday, Tracy! You were born around three in the afternoon, right? I remember we had that joke that you came out then because you realized you were late for lunch.

I've been going out with Jeff and his roommates a lot lately. I'm not sure what his intentions are, if he just wants to hang out or if he's looking for an actual relationship. I know he just broke up with his fiance over the summer, so maybe he just wants to have a girl who's a friend for a little while. I don't know. I gues I'll just have to metaphorically grow a pair and ask him what's going on. Not that I don't like him or don't like hanging out with everyone else, but I'm starting to feel a little weird.

But hooray for socializing! I have actually started to miss my room at certain points, rather than constanly regarding it as a chamber of misery and self-loathing. Speaking of self-loathing, I got my ass handed to me during two workshops on one day. I do not recommend that at all. The thing about getting a lot of criticism of a piece is that it's hard to criticize something that is terrible and has no merit. The harshest criticism, I think, comes when people see something really good but find stuff that is keeping it back. At least, that's what I tell myself. It didn't stop me from having a dream about someone relentlessly tearing apart my grammar.

And again, to end on a good note, happy 22nd birthday, my love. If I don't see you online today, the card is in the mail and the gift is forthcoming. Such is what happens when inspiration strikes a scant four days before the event. You'll be surprised.

The worst thing about dreaming about puppies is that when you wake up----no puppies.

Wednesday night I went to a meeting for Proteus, the literay journal that the college puts out once or twice a year. It's like Wisteria, without all the "incest" (If I remember correctly, almost all the contributions were from the editors and staff), and it's bound like a book. Very sexy. A bunch of people showed up, including Jeff, who is now working in the tutoring center. After the meeting we went down the street to the Tidewater. Matt, who lived in the East Quogue house with Jeff and all the other boys I talked about last year, was tending bar and I got my last drink for free, which is good because I had no cash and was bumming money off of a friend. I got a ride with Sean, who doesn't drink (we'll see how long that lasts), which is good because I like my designated drivers sober. I kept Sean company for a bit until he moved down the bar and started talking to this kid Ian, who is in my personal essay class, and Ian's two friends who are also in the program. From then on I was talking to Jeff almost the entire night. He asked for my phone number, so I hope I'll be hearing from him soon. He applied for a job at the Tidewater, too, and if he gets it I don't think I'll have to pay for my liquor for the rest of the year. That may be a bad thing.

I got my printing supplies yesterday and I've already carved two blocks. I got the golden linoleum since it's easier to see pencil on it than on the battleship grey. Amy, do you remember at the end of printmaking II when I took my little paper remnants and used two of my blocks at a time on them? That's a bad description. Anway, I'm trying to do that again, only it's a planned thing this time and not a "Hey, I wonder what would happen if I did a print of my river block and then put my mountain block on top of that?" If they come out halfway decent I'll send you some. I think working sans press is going to hurt at first, but I'll get used to the way the barren prints soon enough.

I watched the debate last night in Wood Hall on the big screen tv. One of the clubs organized snacks. Free food and politics; how could I resist? I was surprised at the turnout--at one point there were probably upwards of thirty people in the tv lounge. I thought Kerry did a good job, but it was disappointing that is was hardly a debate and more like a question and answer session. Bush slammed home his talking points over and over and generally made me cringe. And, as usual, anything that Kerry had to say that was critical of the situation in Iraq, Bush turned it around like he was belittling the Iraqi people, the interim prime minister, the soldiers, and Poland. Yes, Poland. To Bush, if you point out anything that is going wrong or could be improved, you are making a direct attack on the integrity, honor, and bravery of those involved. I hate him. The thought that loomed largest in my mind through the whole thing was "I don't think I can stand another four years of seeing this man's monkey-face on my tv every day for another four years."

You are Fish 'Tacos.' You might think you're
exotic and worldly-wise, but in reality you're
just a bunch of crap on toast. Repeat after
me: 'just because you put something in
quotation marks doesn't make it so.' And
'taco' isn't Spanish for 'toast.'

What Weight Watchers recipe card from 1974 are you?
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